You know, I think a lot of RPGs (and yes, D&D) don't really address the psychology of how society deforms when you have individual superpowerful champions.Obviously the most iconic is some high-level character who can kill hundreds with a few spells, then fly away and rest up to do the same thing again tomorrow like endless reusable ordinance. But consider something like spectral undead who can't be hurt by conventional weapons and who spawn more of themselves. They would just turn any army without the right equipment into an endless army of MORE spectral undead. I just find that it kind of falls apart when you think too hard about it or bring things to that scale.
>>98087616More like ASS destruction. Heh
>>98087616There's a few options to make the logistics work>Those things aren't addressed but it's implied there are mechanisms at play that stop them from happening, scarcity of the threat and its resources or secret organizations fighting them>Those things are addressed in an obscure book>It's cooler to have more powerful stuff around than if development resources went into making it all consistentSome players, me for example, do find it cooler when a world is thought out. So go off OP, have answers for why powerful stuff gets the reaction it does from the world
>>98087616You just wanted to post porn
>>98087616>But consider something like spectral undead who can't be hurt by conventional weapons and who spawn more of themselves. They would just turn any army without the right equipment into an endless army of MORE spectral undead.I wrote an essay about what my ideal RPG would be like, most of it is typical "ways that OD&D/AD&D/3.x could be even better", but I specifically discussed undead in the context of realism.>In addition, undead which convert creatures they kill into copies of themselves (such as Shadows, Specters, Wights, Wraiths) no longer do so, although necromancers and powerful undead can raise weaker undead. The reason for that is that it would create an exponentially growing force within the setting which cannot be fought in ways that do not utterly wipe it out. Adding this on to the fact that many of these creatures are hard to kill using normal damage, and it is clear that a single self-replicating undead could convert an entire city of non-supernatural humans, which is inconsistent with a world that seems alive. If being able to create spawn is iconic, then such a creature will create spawn which are a different sort of creature than itself, making them into commanders rather than fantasy gray goo.TL;DR (and adding context that I autistically omitted from the original essay): My planned solution is the following: necromancers and undead lords like wraiths can create sentient greater undead minions (like wights), but these are a step lower in power, while greater undead minions either don't produce spawn at all, or produce mindless undead that are effectively constructs made of flesh/bones/ectoplasm (zombies, skeletons, shadows), and these cannot further produce spawn, although shadows, due to being iconic for doing this, could be used as a living and non-consumed spell component for a ritual that animates the shadow of a recently killed creature, which of course requires a more powerful commander to be aiding them.
>>98087616>Obviously the most iconic is some high-level character who can kill hundreds with a few spells, then fly away and rest up to do the same thing again tomorrow like endless reusable ordinance.I've thought about this before, a way to easily solve this would be to make all spells have a chance to fumble, which is normally very low but becomes significantly higher if the spell was interrupted. The effects of fumbling a spell would be related to the mechanics of how the spell works in-universe (for example, there could be separate tables for spells that put negative or elemental energy into an object/corpse to animate it, vs spells that merely evoke energy, vs spells that connect multiple distant regions/planes, vs spells that extend the mundane chemical/symbolic properties of their material components), but the effects would be almost universally negative to the caster, and due to their variety would be very difficult to exploit except as a last resort suicide bomb. In addition, pre-4e spells and especially OD&D spells, except for the conjuration of non-living matter, generally had a limited scope, were difficult to cast, and could easily backfire on the caster depending on what monster the caster was fighting. I would simply nerf fire ball/lightning bolt by making their secondary effects realistic (a fire ball consumes oxygen in a cave, a lightning bolt has a chance to hit untargeted metal objects instead) and also making spells much less deterministic and more variable in effect (system shock was an example).
>>98087664and I'm in the thread just to look at the porn, but now that I've read OP's post>>98087616We have people today who have the authority to launch nukes and control horrific war machines that are essentially untouchable by common people, but society holds together
>>98087616>Mass destruction
>>98087913YEEEEEEAAAHHHHHHH>>98087901THat's because the power is not individually theirs, they're saddled with it as a responsibility. Meanwhile the Wizard With No Sense Of Right And Wrong can just casually chuck a fireball into a marketplace and fly off when he wants.
>>98087616How about traditional games?
>>98087616High magic settings have enough highly magical beings to balance everything out.This is the case lore wise in mainline d&d settings where all powers within the setting are at a eternal stalemate in their endless battle with their opposites on the alignment chart.Sure, the average farmers or town guard is utterly fucked the next time the avatar of some evil god comes knocking around, but there is always something of similar power level that is ready to kick it's ass back to hell.What the hell makes you think that settings should be balanced around everything being equal to the power level of the weakest least important npc?
>>98087616Characters that reach that level of power generally go through a phase where they're testing their capabilities, trying to prove themselves, experimenting new powers and such, and then, boredom. It's like when you're 15/17, and can't drive yet, and your license is the most important thing in your life, the promised superpower of being able to move over 20 mph in any direction you choose to, independence and reach. Then you finally get your license, and unless you (understandably) become a br/o/, you get bored in a few months/years of driving.So I think superpowered people that lived long enough to be estabilished, in a setting, as superpowered, would mostly be looking for amusement, and trying to build rather than destroy, as it is more entertaining long-term.There's also the "always someone stronger" trope, that becomes inevitable if you want steadily escalating threats.>>98087788>a step lower in powerElegant solution>>98087913I dreamt of this game the other day, I was surrounded by my classmates and dying like the ending. It kinda sucked, both because of the general dread of facing mortality, but also because a few of the people being nice to me in the dream didn't align at all with their IRL counterparts. Why does Pharos do this to me?
>>98087664No porn was posted.
